Amazon Spheres, part of the Amazon headquarters campus in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, USA, on Sunday, October 24, 2021.
Chonna Kasinger | Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon On Wednesday, it will begin a new round of job cuts expected to be the largest in its 28-year history.
Earlier this month, CEO Andy Jassy said the layoffs would affect more than 18,000 employees, mostly in human resources and stores. He said he was considering layoffs. CNBC reported at the time that the company was laying off about 10,000 employees.
Amazon is cutting headcount after hiring heavily during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s global workforce grew from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021.
The company is also facing slowing sales growth, rising expenses and a deteriorating economic outlook. In addition to layoffs, Amazon has implemented a hiring freeze across its workforce, slowed down warehouse expansions, and closed several experimental projects, including telemedicine services and a quirky video call projector for kids.
Amazon isn’t the only tech company to cut jobs. Companies like Salesforce, Meta, and Twitter are cutting jobs significantly as the recession deepens.
look: Tech layoffs increase as Amazon announces 18,000 more job cuts